It's so disappointing because I know the show is better than this.

It was incredibly funny to me that, after Hat Woz has been all You Need These New Roleplay Items To Defeat Zi-O, and after Sougo has easily shut down Geiz in the past (the OOO episode!)... here, Geiz just beats Zi-O with an Episode 2 power-up item? Why is Hat Woz pushing Geiz so hard to get specific trinket's when apparently any old Ridewatch can take Sougo apart?

So, the answer to my question from last time was… true.

Anyway, while I don’t remember much about the episode in particular (other than Geiz getting Quiz to explode his dad to avoid the need for a Ridewatch… only for Ora to just turn Another Quiz back on), but I did take note of the fact that Quiz’s belt has a female voice, to which I was like “Have they done that before?” (I then looked it up, and it turned out they’d half done it with Poppy’s Gashat. The two-female voiced items since then have also been half-efforts).

Next time: The one that came to America and got a (mostly. The coding is reused from Climax Fighters) brand new video game.

Quiz is such a silly concept for a Rider, I love it. The idea that, in 20 years time, the series gimmick will have moved beyond "Samurai" and "Dinosaurs" to "Oh yeah it's all about quiz questions and also the collectible items are punctuation marks" gives me an unreasonabe amount of joy.

Watching it the first time, yeah, I agree. Hearing it all again, it's actually clever writing. I wish I could say more, but you should have it figured out in another 10 episodes or so. Let just say the established rules of how this worked meant that the characters had every reason to act the way they did and no idea it would work any differently. That fact that it did, it's just plot convenience, it's setting something else up.

Much like Geiz and Sougo's entire conflict, what Hat Woz claims to be the inevitable outcome may just turn out to be a pointless conflict.

Mondo's mother is dead though, so his future hasn't really changed much. Even if he loses his powers in his past 2019, they'll probably return to him in his present 2040, as the timeline problem gets resolved (unless it's Oma Zi-O in which case Quiz ceases to exist entirely). That's the perk of being from the future, since most of Mondo's history hasn't happened yet and you can't really negate something that doesn't exist.

So yeah, I agree that the stakes here are kind of irrelevant, since a lot of it is probably being made bigger than it is in Geiz's mind. There's the paradox that Geiz is supposed to be this savior of Kamen Riders, but apparently he has to usurp the power of future Kamen Riders to accomplish that and it's not so different from how Oma Zi-O rose to sovereignty. I think Geiz's problem with that is on principle that taking Quiz's power for the sake of obtaining more power is just a morally ambiguous thing to do, even if the effects of that are merely temporary. And of course, he doesn't want to destroy Sougo if he doesn't have to. White Woz is the one who wishes for Sougo's death the most.

Goddammit, 2 misses in a row. I suck at this!

Still, pretty neat to have a differently gendered transformation item. Thanks for the info!

I really wish Mondo had spent more time on irrelevant trivia. He does that one party game thing at 9-To-5, but that's basically it for his entire story. All of his Kamen Rider Quiz questions are about how the fight's going to go, and he's too somber the rest of the time to demand answers in the form of a question, or whatever.

Interesting! I'll be sure to keep my eyes open.

I think it's just Geiz realizing that he's not the type of guy to hurt innocent people, even if it's for a good cause. He's built up this persona of an at-any-cost Grim Executioner, but he's just some teenager who's figuring himself out.

W̶o̶u̶l̶d̶n̶'̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶l̶d̶ ̶s̶o̶m̶e̶t̶h̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶q̶u̶i̶r̶k̶y̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶c̶r̶a̶z̶y̶,̶ ̶f̶i̶l̶l̶e̶d̶ ̶w̶i̶t̶h̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶e̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶r̶o̶u̶b̶l̶e̶d̶ ̶p̶e̶o̶p̶l̶e̶ ̶a̶n̶d̶ ̶t̶h̶u̶s̶ ̶c̶a̶n̶ ̶b̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶t̶e̶r̶e̶s̶t̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶l̶i̶v̶e̶ ̶i̶n̶?̶. Otherwise, this seems to be a good idea for Geiz to take a look at the future where he wins tbh, to take a look of his mirror regarding his animosity towards Sougo, albeit now they're comrades or just really closer than before. But further talk about this would be spoiler, other than Geiz Revive now being teased more.

I guess I'd agree too that the resolution doesn't put the father on the pedestal, just because he's the parent. It was about Tamotsu making up a bit, not by absolving him from his mistakes that he had done in the past, but about slightly improving the strained relationship by having him reminded about why he left his family for his research. It's a second chance for him (not Mondo) as in Geiz Revive's timeline he died without achieving anything, but now Mondo's watch moving had him changing his family fate. He had some comparison to said Geiz as well, both were fated to die having accomplished nothing worth noting with their lives, but offered a chance to get the future they were obsessed with through a costly deal, Ora for Another Quiz and White Woz for Geiz.

Actually this displays that Tsukuyomi had better judgment of the main duo than they themselves at each other (though it'd be Mom-ish for the part of how both of them value her opinion). Geiz hesitates between taking Mondo's power to defeat Another Quiz and letting him reunite with his father (I guess this also highlights Geiz's development himself that he grows out of his black and white mentality not only to Sougo but also to Another Riders), thus he asks her what'd Sougo do in his position of which he got her answer of Sougo prioritizing Mondo's feelings, thus he got a thoughtful expression for a moment. Though he covers up agreeing with her answer by telling her that they need to fight (so still some tsundere aspect, not admitting Sougo is right), this is then used as Geiz and Sougo's plan later with Geiz giving Mondo time to confront his father and prevent Ora from interfering by rushing straight at them to punch Zi-O instead, allowing Quiz to have his chance to escape.

Sougo asking Tsukuyomi which gets him the answer of blindly rushing at Mondo as someone too straightforward also lets him figure that out when Geiz punched him that it's their plan to solve the Mondos' problem, instead of the miscommunication of Sougo being confused why he attacked him, he's usually too straightforward to make that simple mistake. Then Sougo furthers buy them time by stalling White Woz while beating Another Quiz to draw out answers for Mondo's questions.

White Woz has some defiance in his plan that Geiz now won't stop Mondo as for above, so while he'd change history, now the chance of him becoming Geiz Revive is thinner, as what White Woz wants him to be. The fight between Zi-O and White Woz, it also makes use of W Watch which'd mean the Heisei Generations event is canon.

Quiz is one of those cases where I hear the premise for a show and think "you know, that sounds like an interesting gimmick but I have no idea how you would sustain it for an entire series."

Yeah, it nicely leaves it up to the audience to decide what might happen next. The main thing it does is provide Mondo with the closure he and his mom needed, but there's also the possibility that his dad might turn things around. It's a good resolution!

(Fish Sandwich also watched Kamen Rider Zi-O - EP20)

I was pretty hard on this two-parter at the time, by my standards at least, and for pretty similar reasons to why Die has for not connecting with it that much. The story never ~quite~ makes it to the point where it feels like it's really saying some new meaningful thing about the overall show in a way that feels particularly concrete.

Looking back though, I mean, I kinda don't care? I've actually rewatched this arc pretty recently on a complete whim, and divorced from the expectation of seeing it advance Zi-O as a whole, I found myself able to focus much more on what a solid pair of episodes it is on its own merits. It's not reframing and redefining our understanding of any of the principle characters, sure, but it does a great job letting the viewer just sorta soak in the current status quo now that White Woz is here. My outlook on them also improved yet more a bit back, when Die was talking about the previous two-parter, which further put things into perspective. Using the Quiz episodes to focus in on how Geiz feels about everything that's happening lately seems even more justified to me when you consider that Shinobi was ultimately a character used to comment on Sougo more than anything.

So yeah, as I've said, a lot to love about these episodes. More than their place in the grander narrative of the series, though, I really do appreciate them on that Wizard wavelength of being a very strong and emotional self-contained story about nicely developed guest characters whose own arcs also bring something interesting out of the regular cast. Satoshi Morota's direction especially helps to sell the intimate and sentimental tone of the episodes, and there's so much visually in here that gives everything a huge sense of weight. When I say these episodes let you soak them in, I mean it -- the atmosphere throughout is fantastic. I've always especially loved Mondo's reaction when his father gives his answer to the most important question of all at the end, for example, and I literally just noticed watching the scene back the way the focus of the camera shifts between the two of them at like, the exact moment for it to have the maximum emotional impact. That acoustic version of Over Quartzer doesn't hurt either:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1ihEG6L4ro